Longeing Goal, not met...

Thursday night, I went to the barn to see about getting the Beast to behave on the line just walk-trot-halt style since I haven't done much with her in a while.

The day started out great, I got off work a bit early, cleaned her off, and got started.  We did a bit of in-hand work, walk trot halt, and a few turns on the forehand and sidepassing moves (like two steps either side) just to make it different from Wednesday night.  After about 5 minutes of that, we moved on to longeing.  

I wanted to keep it short and sweet, since if she gets it that if she just does what I am asking, there is no friction, she will be happier in the long run.  I am really not wanting her to be bored of this whole process, but she is already as far as I can tell. But I can't take her out of the ring until I can trust her more not to flatten me under a truck or something, you know?  :)

She was doing GREAT.  Absolutely gorgeous at the start. I started her on the left lead, walk-trot transitions to get her brain in gear and focused.  We moved to walk-halt-trot transitions, then a halt, and switched sides.  On the right lead, she was definitely more excited.  I think because in this direction she is moving towards the paddocks and can see all her lovely friends farting about and munching delicious hay in the pasture, she started to lose focus on me.  I tried trot-walk-trot transitions to get her brain back. and had her trotting over a few poles on a long loose circle (I was walking to keep the circle from being too tight, I don't want to wear out her joints).   She was still doing great.  Then the two horses closest to us started squealing and flirting and Suki was distracted.  I gave her the trot cue, she didn't listen, a tap with the whip, and BLAMMO.  Gone.  Like twisted her body to me and just took off.  

I made her do it again, she took off again, and I kept making her work until she realized I wasn't going to stop until she did what I wanted.

I used a stud-chain to keep her from taking off on me before, but I hated using it.  It is just keeping her from taking off, not dealing with the issue, which is that she wants to avoid work.  Is my reasoning faulty here?  Should I be using the stud-chain until she gets it that she can't run away, or should I be persistent and just let her know that it is POSSIBLE for her to run away, but that it just means she has to work out harder?

I don't know.  As you may be able to tell.  I am feeling a little ...   defeated right now.  Lesson tomorrow, so we will see how that goes.  I'll have to go out and ground-drive her tonight, step it up a notch.

Back to the basics

My foot is still sore from being thrown three months ago or whatever, so I am doing some ground work with the Beast.  I figured that I might as well start fresh on some simple stuff since she's been left alone for a long time.
Tuesday night, I went out after work and spent, oh... an hour trying to get all the dried mud and dust out of her coat.  After that cleaning the Augean stables doesn't seem such an impossible task.  My lungs will never be the same!

Since I haven't been doing much with her, I noticed she's been getting a bit silly on the line.  Not pulling or anything, but snorty, a little dancy.  Basically being a bored baby with not enough exercise.  So Wednesday and Tuesday nights I worked only on cleaning her basic manners from the ground. 

The Goal: polite, calm and responsive

The Current Horse: snorty, a bit pissy, and resistant

Tuesday night actually went a little better than Wednesday night since I think she was actually just excited to get out and do something.  I only worked on this for about fifteen minutes at the most since I don’t want her to get bored of it.  I worked on walk, halt, trot, and backing up.  At the start she was resistant, but after a few minutes and a few direction changes and transitions, she really started to relax into it. 

The End Result: Calm horse, responsive, still a little resistant on Wednesday night, but I think that was mostly due to the fact that I took her away from her dinner.  Not that that matters to me, but it explains why she wasn’t working with me so much as just waiting for me to be done.  Unfortunately for her, since the barn owner’s children (who are in their late teens / early twenties) lead her around, she isn’t allowed to misbehave on the line and this is not something she gets to cavil about.  I don’t want her bored, but if she isn’t behaving properly, we work on it in dribs and drabs until she does. 

Since we’ve gotten to that point, I am excited to move on to the next goals:

1.     Longeing without trying to rip the line out of my hands and take off politely and responsively.  This is a fairly new evasive behavior she’s picked up and unfortunately I wasn’t expecting it so she got away from me once, which means she thinks it is AWESOME, and keeps trying it.  L  Bad horse person over here.

2.     A walk along the busy street out front and then onto a quieter trail to get her leading manners down pat in a more fun environment.

3.     Better steering when ground driving.

4.     First ride after break.

I’ll keep you all posted and hopefully get a chance to post my video of her first (or second? can’t remember now) ride before my fall.  

Cumberland Gap

So we are living in Cumberland now, in our new house, and Suki is doing well.  I figured since I am now officially starting the under saddle training, and she's thrown me through one fence, I should probably keep a blog, at least for myself, of how she trains me to train her NOT to throw me through anymore fences.  LOL.

Wish me luck, more to come once my ankle is back in working order.  :)